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The award for Most Marketable Pilot goes to Samphors Vicheka Ty, David Carlo Marasco, Chalitha Weerakkody & Longyao Zhang for their web series pilot Kitty Punchers. The pilot demonstrates great character development, hilarious scripting, direction and attention to detail.

An Honourable Mention goes to Catherine Hall, Chad O’Brien & Enisa Muranovic for Touched On. This web series pilot episode is a comedic homage to Melbourne’s under cover ticket inspectors.

Contemporary Media Work Practices

The award for Outstanding Digital Story and for building an online community with immediate impact goes to Pasha Nielsen, Samphors Vicheka Ty & Kay Pe Singh for their blog Endo Talk.

An Honourable Mention for exploring a topic that is completely out of their comfort zone goes to the Digi Dames (Zexi Liu, Veronica Ong & Janine Rainbow) for their site Melbourne Street Art.

Strategic Media Project

The award for Best Final Project goes to Ting Ni for her short documentary Mika Yamasaki

The award for Best Innovative Project goes to Christina Larsen Stenseth, Harish Adhithya Lakshminarayanan, Edward Paul Kachappilly and Lise Othelie Andreassen for their short film Positive

Honourable Mentions go to Nga Yu Law, Yang Jiang, and Zhuoying Yan and to Rebecca Small and Jason Cheetham.

Collaborative Media Project

The award for Best Project goes to Chalitha Weerakkody, Yihang Quan and Bai Zihua for Yarra's Dream, an animation that will be screened at Federation Square in the coming months (watch this space).

An Honourable Mention goes to Catherine Hall , Josh Fielding , Michael Davoren for their film Reflections which will also be screened at Federation Square

Sound and Image

The award for Excellence in Editing and Reflective Writing goes to Sophie MacGillivray

Story, Genre and Medium

The award for Best Proposal goes to Mirka Sulander with an Honourable Mention to Vicente Miguel Locsin

International Media Collaboration

The award for Most Professional Engagement goes to Jemma Douglas and Chad O'Brien

New Directions in Narrative

The award for Best Electronic Proof of Concept goes to Minh Quang Ha, Yahui Liu, Fanying Ning and Sandi Prasetyaningsih

An Honourable Mention goes to Ian Yorski and Natalia Chernaya

Media Career Development

The award for Excellence in Professional Development goes to Natalia Chernaya

Professional Research Project

The award for Excellence in Practice-Based Research goes to Andrew Dunstan with an Honourable Mentions to Nada Almofadda

RMIT's Master of Media students are visual storytellers from around the globe: Australia, China, India, South East Asia, Africa, the Americas, Europe and the Middle East. They tell their stories using video, social media, podcasts, websites and virtual environments. They make media that makes a difference.

Come and see the outstanding work produced this semester, followed by the course awards presentation and drinks.

Congratulations to Director and Master of Media student Natalia Chernaya for winning the Encouragement Award at the VMC Film Festival Competition. Her film ‘Outcasting’ opens up the conversation about diversity from a different angle - the actor's perspective. Natalia has also won an internship with Artificial Studios for 2018.

A team of Masters of Media students led by RMIT Lecturer and ADG Victoria Head Mark Poole recorded the Australian Directors' Guild Awards for Foxtel Broadcast on May 4. Students will gain a production credit. Students also recorded Vox-pops and some of their footage was picked up by ABC news (see below).

Outcasting explores cultural diversity in casting. With 7.6 billion stories to be told, it’s about time we heard from some different perspectives. Created by Natalia, Christine, Vanessa and Katie for the first semester course Contemporary Media Work Practices. Selected for 2018 VMC film festival at ACMI

First year students Natalia Chernaya, Christine Gjelstrup, Vanessa Crouch and Katie Graham, creators of the documentary 'Outcasting' (2018)

As part of a work integrated learning (WIL) course in Strategic Media Project (Master of Media) Abdul Maghram and Bessie Bian have developed a short NAS virtual reality (VR) documentary.

It was shot over the course of a week using a series of complex camera set-ups that allow for 360-degree filming of the new spaces in the NAS building. Abdhul and Bessie researched, contextualised and managed the project while considering contemporary media directions and issues.

Jack Charles, a prominent indigenous elder and a role model, gave a guest lecture to International Media Collaboration students on 18 August. Mr Charles talked about Race, Culture and indigenous Cinema in Australia and provided an overview of the representation of indigenous Australians in media. Charles stressed that one should understand, learn and value the story of the struggle and the resistance of the indigenous people. He also gave a “welcome to the country” to the international students, as he felt that the international students should be given opportunity to learn and understand about the indigenous culture of Australia. The students really enjoyed the interactive session with “Uncle” Jack!

One of the nation’s most respected and enduring actors, Jack Charles is a member of Australia’s stolen generation. Removed from his mother as a baby and raised in a Salvation Army boys’ home, Jack knew nothing of his Indigenous heritage as a child. At 19 he began a career as an actor, but his life was plagued by personal demons. His addiction to heroin and a life of crime saw him jailed. Despite his struggles, he co-founded Australia’s first Indigenous theatre group, Nindethana, meaning ‘place of corroboree’, at Melbourne’s Pram Factory in 1971. His first play, Jack Charles is Up and Fighting, was a runaway hit. Jack has appeared in several movies, including the landmark film, The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, and more recently Pan alongside Hugh Jackman. He has also toured his own one-man stage show locally and internationally. Now calm and centred, Jack is a strong role model for a new generation of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people.

Thanks to Mitu Bhowmick Lange, for coming to the mid-year Master of Media screening.

Mitu is the founder and director of the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne, and the director of Mind Blowing Films, a film production and distribution company that specialises in the distribution of Indian films throughout Australia and New Zealand.

Mitu was kind enough to give out our course awards to our graduating students. Here is the full list of our course award winners:

Strategic Media Project Course Award for Best Documentary: Hsham Aburghif and Anagha Saggar for Eden Again

Jonathan Sequeira, Master of Media graduate, releases his feature length Radio Birdman documentary, Descent into the Maelstrom. The film about iconic Aussie band, Radio Birdman, is getting a national theatrical release, with Living Eyes and Umbrella Entertainment announcing screening dates in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth throughout July.

Descent into the Maelstrom: the untold story of the band who changed Australia

Sydney, Australia. 1974. A group of outsiders band together with a mission. In world of satin jumpsuits and screaming teens on Countdown, they form the high energy rock’n’roll band RADIO BIRDMAN, forever determined to keep compromise from their art.

Switched off, shut down and booted out of venue after venue they stay determined to do things their own way, and they slowly accumulate a cult-like following of youth, a ‘New Race’ of disaffected youth who rally around the band.

Descent into the Maelstrom is the true story of Radio Birdman, from their original formation to the present. Like the band itself, it’s an independent production, made from outside the industry. It shows what the band meant to the fans, and how they changed Australia, by inspiring a golden age of indie music from Cold Chisel to Midnight Oil.

Descent into the Maelstrom features interviews with all surviving members of the band and doesn’t shy away from the internal conflict which sometimes fuelled the band’s performances. It’s already been called the greatest Australian music documentary ever made and is crammed full of Radio Birdman music and rare archival footage and photos, some not seen for over 40 years!

He is releasing a trailer for it along with creator/actor interviews and Instagram posts upcoming to the event. There will be a live performance from the band, with two other special guests as well as the screening of the entire series.

Jonathan Sequeira, who graduated from the Master of Media in 2016, has just signed a deal with Umbrella Entertainment to distribute his feature length documentary on Radio Birdman: 'Descent into the Maelstrom'. Release dates and details to come.

An eclectic mix of Bollywood blockbusters, indie & cross-over films, alternate cinema and regional movies were screened at this year’s RMIT Indian Film Festival. Dr Vikrant Kishore, the festival director and Master of Media lecturer, chose the festival theme ‘Indian Stories, Australian Screens’. The festival provided exciting opportunities to discuss issues of developing and creating content, funding and distribution through traditional as well as new media outlets in India and Australia. Spread over four days, 21 films were screened along with music & dance performances, a conference and Q&A session with filmmakers. The festival was hosted by RMIT’s Centre for Communication, Politics and Culture.

2016 Master of Media Award for engagement with industryWinner: Ekaterina Kologrivova for her professional research project, in which she interviewed television industry professionals.Honourable mention: Megan Brewer for her work with womens' AFLHonourable mentions: Ahmed, Stacy (Xiao Ma), Ailee Ma, Jing Wen and Dera Huang for 'Start Up Melbourne’

In semester 2, 2016, Master of Media students took part in a 10-day field trip to learn about Gunditjmara culture, land and people.

The students are collaborating with members of Winda Mara Aboriginal Corporation on a mobile app to be used in the promotion of the Tyrendarra Indigenous Protected Area, near Portland in Victoria's south-west. Currently in post-production, the work-integrated learning (WIL) project is being created as part of the Collaborative Media Project course. The app uses GPS technology to trigger audio, video, photographic and textual content as the user progresses through the site. The content includes interviews with Gunditjmara Elders, rangers and tourism officers, and aims to enhance tourism to the area. The mobile app will be released in 2017 by Winda Mara on the Apple and Google app stores.

VIDEOS FOR THE VICTORIAN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY AND HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION

Less than 20 years ago in Victoria, LGBTI people had no legal protection against discrimination on the basis of their sexual orientation and gender identity. Change finally came in 2000 with the inclusion of two new attributes to the Equal Opportunity Act – sexual orientation and gender identity.

Pride not Prejudice is a collaboration between the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission (VEOHRC) and RMIT Master of Media students in the course Collaborative Media Project. The project is a series of short films that engages with the amendment to the Equal Opportunity Act in 2000 that included protections for the attributes of sexual orientation and gender identity. The videos feature interviews with prominent members of Victoria’s LGBTI communities 15 years after the amendment came into effect.

RMIT Lecturer Patrick Kelly said the aim of the project was to give students the opportunity to work on real-life projects, responding to a client brief that helps them prepare for a career in media.

In February 2016, Master of Media students travelled to India on a two-week study tour to explore Bollywood culture and gain an understanding of the world’s largest producer of film. The tour was organised by Master of Media lecturer Dr Vikrant Kishore.

Master of Media student Prachi Daga said “This experienced really solidified to me what I want to do - make docudramas based on history and culture and take it to a global market…The two weeks in India was extremely eye-opening. In such a short amount of time I was exposed to a range of influential professionals in the industry and learnt about how Indian cinema functioned.”

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share-Alike 3.0 Unported License. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the authors and in no way represent the views of RMIT University, the School of Media and Communication, or the Media programs.